


Calling the Soul

by Maybethings



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Foreign Language, M/M, Prompt Fic, Qunlat, conlang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a fix-it prompt. Anders is tasked with pulling a Qunari back from the brink of death. He receives assistance in an unexpected way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calling the Soul

It was not the flesh, battered and flayed though it was, that gave Anders trouble. It was the soul, tiny and flickering and about to go out between his lyrium-veined hands. There was so little left tying it to the Qunari’s body, he didn’t dare to even move lest it melt like a snowflake in his palm.

“Anders!” Hawke’s commanding voice was far away. “What’s the hold-up there?”

“He doesn’t look too good,” Merrill chipped in worriedly.

“Told you we didn’t make healing potions big enough for this,” he heard Varric add at an equal distance.

“ _Varric._ ”

“It is difficult.” Justice was speaking the words as much as he was, and he tasted Fade-air on his breath. “His soul is nearly peeled away from the flesh. There is little we can do, even working together.”

“Ashaad, come back.” It was the first the pale-cheeked boy had said since he’d pleaded for Hawke’s assistance, blood on his hands and clothes, eyes as guileless as the summer sky. “Please come back. It’s not supposed to be like this.” And that spark of a soul, no bigger and no tougher than a fleck of dandelion fluff, pulsed with a resonant light.

”Speak, boy,” Justice said, his words ringing and hollow. “Call him back. Do not stop.”

And Saemus did, his fingers clasped around Ashaad’s cold, unmoving hand. He spoke of how they had met, their conversations, the time they had shared, the thoughts they had spoken aloud. Anders could feel the…it was not life, it was some other force, pulsing along the body, a precursor to living, but it was _there_ and growing. ” _Nahr kata, kadan,_ ” the young man wept, lapsing into the strange, harsh Qunari tongue. “ _Ben-dar asheth salit-an katoh?_ ”

Ashaad twitched. Drew a weak breath. Marian Hawke gasped, and if Anders knew her at all, she’d be standing wide-eyed, hand over her mouth. But now, now there was a chance the man might yet live.

He poured his whole self into the healing. So did Justice. After such a crisis, even the huge wound on his back and the shock and bloodloss were as child’s play. At some point Varric or even Merrill must have passed him a vial of lyrium. He didn’t really care. He took the whole thing in a long, uninterrupted swallow, crushing even the bitter, chalky grit between his teeth as the world flared dark-bright-dark, and then there was nothing left to mend, nothing left to replenish that nature would not do more kindly.

The Qunari’s eyes did not open. But he lived, and his heart beat, and his lungs breathed, and his blood flowed where it should be. Anders nearly collapsed on the sand in his fatigue. Marian and Saemus looked to him, their blue eyes questioning and hopeful.

He nodded, once, feeling Justice slip back into some deeper center within him. “He’ll sleep for a good long while, but he’ll live.” Anders struggled to his feet, and Marian pulled him up by one arm. He gave her a grateful nod, leaning on her shoulder for a moment.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Saemus said, his voice trembling.

“You could come back to your father without putting up too much of a fight,” Hawke supplied helpfully.

“Yes, I’ll do that much,” Saemus said. “There’s a patrol due here soon. They’ll find him.”

“But hopefully not us,” Merrill said. “I wouldn’t like to get my tongue cut out.”

“Or me,” Marian agreed. “But…do tell him we said hello, the next time you see your friend.” She grinned, all teeth and mischief. “They’re quite charming when they’re not trying to lop someone’s head off.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Nahr kata, kadan...Ben-dar asheth salit-an katoh?_ \- Do not die, my friend...Where will I seek one who understands like you?


End file.
